It was a great exciting moment yesterday (30th March 2009) at Hotel Africana when innovative teachers and innovative schools were awarded with laptops, projectors and Smart Boards by Microsoft Innovative Teachers Forum.

Innovative Teachers’ Competition

Teachers were required to exhibit an innovative lesson or project they had carried out with the students.

The judging criteria included:
1.  Objectives/Outcomes of the lesson or project.
2.  Learning tasks and activities.
3.  Instructional strategies.
4.  Relevance of ICT tools.
5.  Innovative use of ICT tools.
6.  Educator as a change agent or learners as change agents (Community involvement).

The judges observed the following:

•  A number of teachers did not follow the judging criteria when making their presentations.  It is always important to follow the judging criteria when putting up presentations or entries for any competition. Like we advice students marking is based on a given marking scheme.
•  There was a general lack of understanding of innovation. Innovative teaching means doing the teaching in a different way with the purpose of achieving more impact. Out- of- the- box way of doing things. Most of teachers were presenting business as usual stuff.
• There was general lack of documentation of students’ activities and students’ evaluation of the lesson or project. Like we do in workshops, asking participants’ evaluation and including it as part of the workshop report, we need always to document learners’ evaluation of what we do.
•  A good number of teachers still need to improve on their writing and communication skills.

The judges recommended a training workshop for the teachers who will be moving to the Africa competitions to be held in Mauritius later this year.

A number of teachers in our SchoolNet network made presentation however there could have been more entries.  We  would like to use this opportunity to still call upon more teachers to come up and take up the opportunities we send on our mailing lists as they unveil.
 
Remember
“Opportunities are missed by most people because they come dressed in overalls and appear as extra work”
“Opportunities are never missed because what you miss is grabbed by another person”
“God feeds the birds but does not put food in their nests”

Award Winners:
 Winner – Acer Laptop (US$850)
Winner went to Richard Bukenya  Obadiah– a Music teacher at Gayaza High School.

1st Runners up – Aspire One 3G (US$ 750)
1st Runners up went to Milton Chebet – a Biology teacher at Gayaza High School. Chebet normally shares biology website on the mailing list.

2nd Runners up – Aspire One Ordinary (US$ 600)
2nd Runners up went to Solomon Bbumba – a primary teacher formally at Nalinya Lwantale Primary school.
The 1st, 2nd and 3rd positions automatically qualified to participate in the African Innovative Teachers competitions. Microsoft will take care of the all the costs of air travel, accommodation and feeding. We wish them all the luck.

In the 4th position was Kasujja Henry – An Art teacher at St. Henry’s Kitovu and in the 5th position was Omoding Samuel a Biology teacher at Kitante Hill School. The 4th and 5th positions are on the reserve list for the Africa Innovative Teachers Competition.

We at SchoolNet Uganda,  would like to pass on our heartfelt congratulations to the winning teachers and to thank them for taking advantages of the opportunities we send on the mailing list.  At the same time, we would like to encourage others to do similarly.
 

Innovative School’s Competition:

The evaluation of the schools was based on the following criteria:
1.      School investment in ICT.
2.      Teacher Professional development.
3.      Use of ICT for administrative tasks.
4.      Use of ICT for teaching and learning.
5.      Innovative use of ICT tools.
6.      Community involvement.

Award Winners
 
 Winner – SMART Interactive White Board SB68077″ with NEC Projector (US$3,850)
The Winner went to Gayaza High School

1st Runners up – SB680 77″ (US$2,500)
1st Runners up went to St. Maria Goretti Katende.

2nd Runners up – NEC Projector 2000lumens (US$1,500)
2nd Runners up went to St. Joseph Girls School Nsambya.

We thank the Head teachers and the teachers for keeping the school flags up. We encourage more schools to participate in such events because this is a cheap way of acquiring ICT equipment for the school with putting a financial burden to the parents. Additionally, such activities help to enhance the teaching learning process..